LONDON - Women in the Middle East and North Africa are better educated than ever before, but legal and social barriers are hampering their access to jobs and careers, costing the region billions of dollars a year, experts said Wednesday.

Just under a quarter of women in the region are in the workforce - one of the lowest rates in the world, said the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

The region also has the lowest proportion of female entrepreneurs, according to an OECD report that examines barriers to their employment in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia.

Nicola Ehlermann, an OECD expert on the region, said girls' education was encouraged but professional aspirations were not.

'If these countries were to use the full potential of the women they invest in educating, they could gain massively,' she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The OECD estimates gender-based discrimination in laws and social norms costs the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region $575 billion a year.

Following the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, a number of countries incorporated gender equality into their new or amended constitutions.

Family-related rules

But strict rules around family relations mean women do not share the same rights as men to make decisions, pursue professions, travel, marry, divorce, or inherit or access wealth.

FILE - A female employee works in a Renault factory in Oran, west of Algiers, Nov. 10, 2014.

In Egypt, Jordan and Libya, women must still get permission from their husbands or fathers to work, the report said.

Unfair inheritance laws also put women at a disadvantage if they want to start a business or ask for a loan.

Ehlermann said labor laws that restrict women's working hours and the sectors they can work in, and social expectations that they shoulder the housework and child care, affect women's job choices and employers' decisions to hire them.

'We need the men on board. Responsibility for income and managing the house should be shared,' said Ehlermann, the report's author.

Fears of sexual harassment in the workplace or on public transport is another factor that deters women from seeking work.

The report urged MENA countries to update their labor and family laws, improve women's access to finance and develop policies to help them fulfill their potential.

Gabriela Ramos, OECD chief of staff, called for countries to embed gender equality in all their laws - and enforce them.

'Gender equality is not only good for women, it's good for businesses, it's good for sound economies and it's good for happier societies,' she said.

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